Government has cards up its sleeve to increase revenue – 08/28/2023 – Market

The executive secretary of the Ministry of Planning and Budget, Gustavo Guimarães, said this Monday (28) that the government has “a fat” of measures aimed at increasing revenue, in addition to what has already been publicly presented.

Questioned what these measures are, the number two of the Ministry of Planning said that they will be in the PLOA (Annual Budget Law Project), but said that he cannot advance them.

“There are even measures that are still in doubt as to whether they will be implemented or not, but they will have to be implemented in order to make that composition to reach target zero next year”, he told journalists during the Warren Institutional Day.

This Monday, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) signed an MP (Provisional Measure) to tax exclusive funds, known as super-rich funds, and sent a bill on the taxation of offshore funds and trusts, which provides for annual taxation of income from capital invested abroad, with progressive rates from 0% to 22.5%.

In addition to these two measures, there is a bill pending in Congress that restores the casting vote on tax issues judged within the scope of the CARF (Administration Council for Tax Resources), and another bill that deals with the taxation of sports betting.

The government must submit the budget project for 2024 by the end of this month. According to Guimarães, there is no other option but to send Congress a PLOA with a zero deficit target, despite growing skepticism in relation to the government’s capacity to comply. your fiscal goals. “It’s a question of legality, you have to forward with a zero goal,” he said.

According to the secretary, if the government fails to reach this fiscal target with an increase in revenue, it will have to start looking at the spending side.

“We have two options keeping the target zero,” he said. “If revenues do not reach a level to zero, we have to forward a smaller expense to zero.”

Guimarães said that it is natural that there are doubts regarding the fiscal target, after all, there is only one expectation of revenues in the PLOA. He pondered that, if the Brazilian economy manages to exceed growth expectations, the collection may be greater than initially planned.

The secretary also recalled that, as provided for in the new fiscal framework, there is room for execution, with a tolerance margin of 0.25 percentage points for non-compliance with the fiscal target.

Guimarães also said that there are several ministries that expect to increase revenues with concessions, such as Mines and Energy and Transport, and everything is being raised before the budget piece is sent.